Oral Fixation
by vault of glass
Summary: One-shot for the km. MacCready's already healed her wounds. It's time she healed his, too.


River felt bad about her desires at first. Like she was some evil villain, out to corrupt the Commonwealth's youth. Because really, that's what all of her concerns boiled down to, his age - and hers. And she didn't even know whether or not to include the extra two centuries in there, too.

The age gap aside, she absolutely adored MacCready, though she tried to keep it to herself. The kid - and _Jesus_ thinking of him like that only made her feel guiltier - seemed to have no such qualms about age; though if the way he spoke to Piper and Cait was any indication, he was possibly just a horrible flirt. That was kind of endearing, too, in its own way. She had a strong suspicion it was also hot air, and she was forced to grudgingly acknowledge that she might possibly have a type. Nate had been nearly a virgin when they'd first met, and teasing out the sexual confidence in him had resulted in orgasms so powerful she swore she could still feel phantom ghosts of pleasure from them to this day.

No matter how River felt about them, the fantasies were _there,_ haunting her whenever she closed her eyes, and she could almost feel the weight of him beneath her palms as she imagined shoving him up against the nearest wall and finally kissing that smirk right off of his tempting mouth. It wasn't fair to MacCready, thinking of him like that, but as long as she didn't act on it, she wasn't technically morally reprehensible. _Rationalizing my behavior on technicalities is probably not a good sign, though._

"You are being scary quiet." The arrogant slant of his voice broke through her thoughts, always with the hint of laughter, and she glanced at him over her shoulder. The edge of a tawny brow lifted over the top of his shades. "Anything I need to be concerned about?"

 _Only that the way you hold that rifle makes me want to suck your fingers._ When had _that_ ever become something she was into? And yet she couldn't deny it as her eyes lingered on the wide, masculine knuckles, the rough calluses under the pads of his fingers. She quickly turned back around, shaking her head at herself. "Just glad to be home," she finally answered when the silence had stretched on for too long. They were just starting over the old north bridge toward Sanctuary. Her eyes scanned the perimeter walls reflexively, satisfied with their condition. That was what made coming home so sweet - dropping all of those constant worries in the Commonwealth and being able to actually sleep, if only for a few days before they needed to be off again. It was almost familiar - like some warped imagining of a wasteland 9-to-5. She almost made the comparison to MacCready, then realized by the time she could explain it all it wouldn't be funny anymore, and the thought made her feel abruptly so lonely and empty she came to a complete stop.

MacCready bumped right into her, startled by her sudden motionlessness, and his warm hands easily caught her arms when she stumbled. "You're acting so crazy," he chuckled, though she could hear concern in the sound, and that was what she loved about him, how easily he could express himself, how open and vulnerable he had always been with her, and didn't he deserve to know that she'd been touching herself to thoughts of him fucking her for months? She could feel how wide and rounded her eyes were as his smile faded. "Seriously, River, you're okay, right?"

"I need to figure something out," she sighed, hard with her frustration, and she could see that it startled him. "I won't be able to think about it once we get back to town and catch up with everybody."

"Well, let me help you, then," he offered, though his firm tone weighted it more toward a command, and he had to know how sexy he was to her, had to know because he constantly found new ways to tempt her that even she wouldn't have guessed at, and she had been so lonely and so afraid for too long, and he seemed to be the only one who really got it. Because he really did, and that broke her heart, too.

He'd been slowly healing her, every time he protected her, every time he made her laugh, every time he promised that he had her back, and she really, really wanted to heal him, too.

River should have told him no. She knew it just as certainly as she knew she wasn't going to. Not with the way MacCready was looking at her - like she was the only thing in his world, and it was hard to feel like she deserved that after everything she'd lost. But he had a way of making her forget, he made her feel human again when the Commonwealth threatened to take away the last good parts of her, all her tenderness, her compassion.

Finally she sighed, shoulders dropping in defeat, and she tried to ignore the surprised look on his face when she took his hand and dragged him away from Sanctuary.

"I thought you were glad to be home?" He didn't sound concerned, just curious. His trust was more than anyone could expect from another person these days, and she hoped he knew how mutual that feeling was.

"This is important." She didn't release his hand as she led him back toward the Red Rocket. It was her sanctuary away from Sanctuary, when the people and the memories were too much and she just wanted some peace and quiet. Usually she just brought Dogmeat when she retreated here from the overstimulation of her old home, his simple, unassuming companionship a stress relief like nothing else, something normal and sane and quiet.

There were other forms of stress release, though, and poor MacCready deserved some respite, too. It probably wasn't easy being out here, suffering a distance from part of himself like she did, but he'd been helping her find Shaun ceaselessly, and aside from their normal bickering, she'd never heard a single genuine complaint from him. He was more than competent in combat, had saved her ass countless times before. More than that, he handled the stress of battle with the coolness of an old army vet, compartmentalized it somehow, or tucked it away, or simply didn't think about it the second it was done. It was a wasteland trait, a second nature when you were born out here, but she had no such protections. The violence and the viscera stained her dreams violet red, burned the backs of her eyelids when she tried to fall back asleep.

A few weeks after they'd begun traveling together, MacCready had started to come to her side after battles and he'd always make an attempt to comfort her somehow. It started with awkward jokes (" _Oh, of course the cookie aisle had to be the one that got crushed. . ."_ amid a pile of dead ghouls in a supermarket), but sometimes it was a simple touch, his hand on her shoulder, or his fingers trailing like a fever down her arm, even once an embrace too short, just enough to feel the press of his hard shoulders beneath his duster. Just the memory of it made her mouth water.

MacCready followed her patiently, his hand wrapped warm and rough around hers. She led him into the garage from the back, closing each door behind him until they were alone together in the open space. He eyed the room with unguarded curiosity, scanning the messy surface of the workbench, a laser rifle scattered over its surface in pieces, a set of armor half pried-apart, an assortment of chems and stimpaks. In the corner, she'd wedged a slim mattress onto a makeshift frame, a pile of blankets on the floor adjacent for Dogmeat when she brought him.

"The cleaning robots must not have shown up today, huh? Look, if you needed help cleaning, I'm not really your guy. . ." He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, but the dance of amusement in his eyes gave him away.

"You . . ." The firm edge to her voice softened out, turned warm with want and laughter. "You are so lucky you're cute, MacCready," she finished. The effect was immediate and more than satisfying when he stiffened in response.

"Yeah?" He coughed, suddenly unable to meet her gaze again, and it was almost funny watching him try to find anything else to look at. It made her feel like a woman again, sensual and powerful, and that really did not bode well for poor MacCready. He recovered well enough, though, with a startled laugh. "Well, I should've warned you about that when you hired me, but I figured this face was warning enough."

River reached up with steady hands, MacCready's eyes focused on her every tiny motion, and released the heavy weight of her hair from its ties. It fell in snow-white waves around her shoulders, and she knew too well how much he admired it. He'd never said as much, but he'd never needed to - his face had been clear enough the first time he'd laid eyes on the strange, pure whiteness of her hair. It had been just another horror for her, when she'd realized the dye job she'd gotten the day before the bombs had reacted adversely with the freezing process, but his appreciation had started to bring her around to it.

He was silent as he watched her run her fingers through her hair, soothing the strain on her scalp from tying it up so long. Though she'd thought of him as a kid before, he was now very much a man as he looked at her like he was seeing parts of her for the first time, and he seemed to like what he saw.

"I can't tell you how much you've helped me," she confessed, enjoying being the focus of his attention.

His laughter caught her off-guard, made her face twist into a scowl. "Aw, come on, don't look at me like that! I'm sorry, I can't help it. Please don't think about thanking me for a thing, River," he told her, his voice growing firmer as he spoke. "The things you've done for me . . . trust me, you don't owe me a thing."

"It's not what I think I owe you. It's what I want to do to you."

That wiped the lingering smile off his face, and it was too satisfying to see him splutter, knowing she'd startled the snark out of him if only for a moment. While he was struggling to find some cocky, off-hand retort, she moved in closer to him, placing one slender hand against his chest. She could feel the strong beat of his heart beneath her palm, and it soothed her like a hot shower, like a full night's sleep, like finding another chance at what she'd lost.

"You don't need help cleaning, do you?" he asked under his breath, as if he feared speaking too loud might shatter the moment, and she dropped her voice to match his.

"You've always been really straight with me, so you deserve the same in return." She took a deep breath, reminding herself that she was a grown-ass woman, two centuries too old to beat around the bush, that life in the Commonwealth didn't long afford playing games, that she wanted him and had come to terms with how bad of a person it made her a long time ago. She lifted her eyes to meet his, and his gaze was steady, patient, waiting. "You're my best friend and for weeks, I haven't been able to stop thinking about you. You're in my head all day and then I dream about you at night. At first, I didn't know what to think about it, didn't know what kind of person it made me to think of you that way . . . but I can't shake it."

She'd finally succeeded in disabling MacCready's sarcasm, if the bewildered expression and pregnant silence were any indication.

"I know that's probably a lot to take in," she continued when it was clear he wasn't going to come up with something anytime soon. "And I'm sorry if this makes things weird. I just needed to tell you how I feel. You don't have to say anything or . . . or feel the same or anything, y'know? I just couldn't go another day with you not knowing how badly I want you."

MacCready was very still as he looked down at her, eyes searching her face, and his voice was rough and parched when it came out. "Tell me you mean it," he breathed, his hands coming up to rest appreciatively at her hips. He pressed his lips to her forehead and closed his eyes. "Tell me I'm not dreaming."

She cupped the strong line of his jaw with her hands, pushed herself up on her tiptoes and kissed him. His mouth was dry and soft, lax with surprise at first and then moving with fervor and heat beneath hers. It had been so long since she kissed someone like this, and it stoked the embers of an ancient, dormant lust into scalding flames. His warm fingers threaded into her hair, cradled her close so he could fully claim her mouth, and his tongue when it brushed hers left a curling heat deep in the pit of her belly. Finally he pulled away, forehead tilted against hers, and his breath tickled her when he chuckled. "Oh, man," he sighed wistfully. "That was even better than I thought it'd be."

River nipped at his bottom lip, soothed it over with another languid, lingering kiss. "I'm sorry," she breathed as her head began to spin. She pulled away, feeling suddenly too open, too empty under his searching eyes. "I shouldn't have - "

"Oh, no you don't," he cut her off, catching her by the wrists as she tried to step back further. "You don't get to kiss me like that and then run away."

"I'm just . . . messy," she protested warily, studying his face obsessively to watch the emotions that rippled across, willing him to understand what she couldn't say. MacCready had become her foundation, her lighthouse, her anchor in stormy seas, and it wasn't right to try and take advantage of that, no matter _how_ delicious he tasted, how sweet the feel of his hands on her aching body.

He leaned in slowly, purposefully, defiance in the line of his gaze, and then he was kissing her again. Gentle and sweet, his mouth unfroze feelings and sensations that had been locked away somewhere deep inside of her a long time ago. He was heaven to taste and even better to feel beneath her curious hands, warm, rolling muscle and his heartbeat, strong and frantic under her fingertips.

"You're almost annoyingly good at that," she complained when he started to find more places to taste, earning herself a chuckle, hoarse with lust.

"Easy to get carried away with you," he groaned into the curve of her throat. He straightened with a sigh that she could feel leave him like a gust of wind. His eyes were hard to read as they studied her, lingering for a moment on her lips, swollen from his. "So I'm confused. Do you want me or are you wimping out now because you feel bad?"

"You're just young," she blurted out before she could stop herself, regretting it the instant amusement passed over his face. But she couldn't resist the sound of his laughter when it bubbled up again, easy and confident.

"Those two centuries don't really count, you know. And even if they did, nobody wears two hundred like you do." His hands roamed around the curve of her hips to test the weight of her ass, and she felt as much as heard the appreciative rumble deep in his chest. "And if you could hear the thoughts I've had about you, you'd believe me when I tell you I am very much a man. I promise you that, River."

She shivered, a long, abusive shudder that left her feeling too hot and too cold at the same time. "You've been teasing me on purpose, haven't you?" she realized, wondering if some of her brain cells might not have thawed out completely yet.

"No, that's the best part," he assured her with no small amount of smugness. "I apparently didn't have to."

"MacCreadyyy," she whined as he dipped his head to kiss her again. He stopped, made a hard, frustrated sound.

"RJ. It's RJ," he told her earnestly, no sign of mischief in his tone, and when she whispered his name back to him, his smile took her breath away. "Damn, I should've told you that a long time ago. Sounds so good in your voice."

The swell of affection was so strong and so sudden, she panicked briefly that she was having a heart attack. She hadn't experienced such happiness in so long that she hardly recognized the feeling. She'd never felt so young or so goddamn beautiful. She had to show him how he made her feel, had to thank him for this second chance he had given her at peace.

"I want to give you something, RJ," she breathed, a promise in her voice, and his eyes were heavy-lidded and curious.

"Christmas come early, huh?" he teased, and nobody could do arrogance quite like RJ MacCready.

She rolled her eyes as she backed up in the general direction of the bed, drawing him after her by the belt loops. He let her lead him, the curve of his smirk patient and curious and somehow also wicked. What was it about that grin that could wash all the hurt away? She ached to know, determined to figure it out if it took the rest of their lives.

 _Ooh, boy, that's a crazy thing I just thought._

When she indicated he should sit down, he obeyed, for once without a snarky retort. He was evidently too curious to tease her as she climbed on top of him, her thighs warm around his hips, and she choked on a moan when the ridge of his erection pressed insistently against her heated core.

"You're kidding," River gasped at the feel of him, because even through the layers of clothing between them it was clear he was hung, and deliciously thick.

MacCready let out an appreciative laugh. "Man, you really know how to make a guy feel good," he sighed dreamily, his palms kneading her hipbones through her vault suit. "It's crazy what you do to me, beautiful. I can't remember the last time I was this hard."

She leaned into his touch, latching onto his throat with her mouth and pulling a bruise into the tender skin. She swallowed the low groan that vibrated beneath her lips, humming in approval when one of his hands found the zipper to her suit. He slid it down over the swell of her breasts, past her heaving ribs until their positioning prohibited him from freeing any more of her flawless skin.

He caught her face in his hands, and when his thumb brushed her lips she pulled it into the cavern of her mouth, suckling for a moment on his thick finger and his anguished groan was so sinful she almost came apart at just the sound of it.

"River," he breathed and she'd never loved her name as much as when he said it like that. She trailed kisses down his throat, now splotched with dark welts from her insatiable mouth. His lean chest, when she finally freed it from his tattered shirt, was littered with scars, old bullet wounds like blossoms, old horrors and fears. Those, too, she soothed away, sealing her lips over each smooth scar.

MacCready remained as still as he could, biting back a giggle when her lips found a scar that spanned a few of his ticklish ribs. She laughed against his skin, cool breath raising goosebumps, and his hands wove lovingly through her hair.

When River deftly pulled down the zipper to his jeans, he drew in a sharp breath. The grey cotton of his underwear barely contained him. Her mouth seared his cock through the material, made him exhale shakily in surprise.

Her hands on him were reverent, bordering on worship as she freed his aching erection from the confines of his underwear. She let out a sigh of relief when the heavy weight of him fell into her hands. She glanced up to catch his expression, and the sight of his head thrown back, Adam's apple moving as he swallowed past his dry throat would appear in her dreams for years after.

This was something River hadn't done in literal centuries, but it was an act she was happy to get back into. And RJ was really the perfect size and shape, not small at all, and just imagining how it would feel to stretch around him made her feel weak. She ran the flat of her tongue up his rigid shaft, savored the lilting sigh it coaxed out of him. He was far too big to take all the way, no matter how talented she'd been at this before the war, but for now she closed her mouth around the swollen head, worked her tongue against him.

"Son of a bitch," he groaned, gripping his hair by the roots in disbelief, and she never would have suspected how much hearing him lose his self-control would turn her on. His eyes were locked onto her mouth as it closed around him, slid down his cock until it hit the back of her throat and then even a little farther. It wasn't easy in the slightest, but she was getting addicted to all the rough, masculine sounds she could draw out of him.

She gripped the last stretch of his cock in her hands, and they moved, slick with saliva, in time with her working throat and mouth, layer upon layer of tight, silky heat that made his legs shake beneath her palms, wrenched more hoarse curses from his parched throat. She closed her eyes past the sensation of him breaching her throat, ignoring the brief wave of panic and breathing forcefully through her nose. Yeah, she still had it all right, if the way his hips jerked in response was any sign.

"Fuck, River, that's so good," he sighed, and his eyes shone adoringly down at her when she looked back up at him. She swallowed, her throat constricting around the intruding member and he exhaled a loud, agonized moan.

River released him with a heavy sigh, dragging the tight grip of her hand up and down his throbbing shaft as she caught her breath. Her thumb circled the head of him, spreading slick precum, before she brought the same finger up to her mouth and closed her lips around it, sucking it clean.

MacCready didn't know what he'd done to deserve this, but whatever it was he'd do a thousand times over again for the mind-shattering pleasure of her mouth closing around his cock. He'd thought at one point that life's pleasures would no longer be possible for him, something he'd been forced to reconsider after meeting her, and now she was proving him wrong with all the grace and finesse a woman like her could command.

He gripped her hair with shaky hands, gathered it high behind her head. Her eyelashes fluttered appreciatively up at him as she swallowed him particularly deep, the vice-like grip of her throat sending waves of rapture like an electric current through his nerves. There was nothing but satisfaction in the amber of her eyes, and he knew at that moment there was no going back, that he would worship the ground she walked on until the day he died and he could do nothing but look forward to it.

One of her slim hands slid down from around his cock to cradle the weight of his balls, a sweet, torturous pressure that brought on the beginning crawl of his orgasm at the base of his spine. There were times he'd been convinced River was an actual angel sent down from heaven to clean up the Commonwealth's act, but now, now as her mouth clamped down like a vice around his cock and her throat worked the oversensitive head . . . . no angel from heaven could suck a dick so well, and he didn't care if she was the devil incarnate, he would never leave her side.

"You're gonna make me come, beautiful," he managed through gritted teeth, trying desperately to ward off his impending release, but she was too good, far, far too good, and he honestly counted his lucky stars he'd lasted this long.

She spared him a heated glance as if daring him to stop her as she bobbed her head with more purpose, as if he were physically capable of doing more than whimpering and jerking beneath her skilled mouth and hands as she guided him determinedly toward release. He ran his fingers through her hair, trying to imprint the sight of her into his brain, on her knees with his cock in her mouth like a believer at worship. If there was any good left in the world at all, he'd get the chance to repay her this pleasure, and imagining her pale, muscled thighs clenching around his head as he brought her to orgasm with his mouth sent him over the edge. He came undone with a shout that echoed metallically around the garage.

River swallowed the jets of warmth that hit the back of her throat, watching in fascination as the lunacy of orgasm passed over his handsome features. His body arched uncontrollably, fingers twitching in her hair as his hips bucked out the last few waves of pleasure.

When he finally fell still, chest heaving as he caught his breath, River wiped her mouth off on the back of her sleeve and climbed to her feet. Her breasts were spilling out of her bra, vault suit pushed back over her shoulders, and she looked so damn good he wanted her all over again.

"Ah, I could do that all day," she sighed contentedly, eyeing him with amusement when he let out an exhausted groan.

"You'll be the death of me," he said, shaking his head.

Was there anything more calming than the sound of her laughter? Like the sun breaking out after a radstorm, or the floating relief of a stimpak to a wound. She curled up into the crook of his arm, and he could really get used to having her so close, feeling the softness of her hair beneath her fingertips, living to the rhythm of her quiet, even breathing.

"It'd be a hell of a way to go, wouldn't it?"

MacCready kissed her, languid and slow after the rush of his orgasm, and the little noise she made under his mouth made his heart clench. It was too late for him, he could see that now clear as day, whether she'd wanted such a thing or not. Not like he was the only one who'd fallen for the beauty from one-eleven anyways. He wasn't an idiot, he could see the way Garvey and Danse looked at her, had even heard Hancock mention how well she filled her vault suit once and he'd never known such overwhelming possessive rage before. It meant a lot of things, truths he'd refused to face at the time, but given very recent developments, he was ready to take a second look.

They'd been lying together on the tiny cot for the better part of an hour, and he still couldn't wrap his mind around what had happened. He could've spent the rest of forever huddled up around her, listening to her heartbeat, the strange and vulnerable things that she said in the wake of their sudden intimacy. He treasured every glimpse he could get into that mysterious mind of hers, clean and pure and full of memories of a world long dead and gone.

Sometime during their discussion, it had started to rain, and it pattered in loud sheets against the metal roof overhead. River wriggled closer to him, trying to escape the chill radiating throughout the poorly-insulated garage.

MacCready exhaled dreamily, running his hands down the slope of her back. "I always knew there was something special about you." He buried his face in her hair, nipped playfully at her skin. "Glad I found it."

She laughed again, and every time she did he could feel his heart kick-start back to life. "Let's just stay here tonight," she suggested in a hushed whisper, like a secret, like a sin, and she was so damn sweet he couldn't help but laugh.

"You read my mind," he agreed lazily, and it must have been exhaustion that made him so unusually pliant. Or maybe, given the way his hands never left her skin, and the tenderness of the kisses he placed along her jaw, it was her proximity, the memory of her mouth on him, the feeling of her legs tangled with his. Either way, it was having some pretty interesting effects on her body too, like over-the-counter cold medicine from before the war. Her eyelids felt heavy, muscles loose and relaxed, and she was somewhere halfway between asleep and awake when his voice roused her again.

"Hey, if you ever need help with any more problems, I'm your man," he teased in the familiar cadence of a joke, but she could hear the strain like a lance through his words, probing, uneasy, uncertain whether he could just come out and ask.

River caught one of his hands in hers, pressed it lovingly to her lips, wishing he could feel her thoughts through the contact so he could know how absolutely she adored him. "You are the answer to all of my problems," she assured him, tracing the line of his jaw with her fingertips, smiling when he nipped lethargically at her hand. "Even if you cause half of them."

"I'll stop causing trouble when you stop laughing," he countered with a smirk, and it was almost impressive how easily the arrogance came to him even through the haze of exhaustion. But it won the laughter from her like he wanted, and the affection in his expression was so tender she would've fallen in love with him then and there if she wasn't pretty sure she already had.

Eventually, locked together like puzzle pieces, they succumbed to sleep, drifted among restful, lust-hazy dreams while the storm passed overhead.

And in the morning, for the first time in over two centuries, River woke up feeling alive.

Hancock found her the next day, once things had settled down after their return to Sanctuary, and the slant of his shoulders as he leaned against her doorway was almost too casual. "You and MacCready have a nice trip?" he asked, and she wasn't sure if the rasp of his voice made him so hard to read or if she were somehow losing her touch.

"We came back alive," she answered evasively. "That's good enough for me."

"Guess you're right." The ghoul grinned, and she narrowed her eyes at him. "Just couldn't help but notice how laid-back he's been since you guys got back. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he's been hittin' the jet. Must've found something else to help him relax . . ." he trailed off, clearly enjoying the dumbfounded look on her face. "Whatever it is, it's doing wonders for him. Looks good on you, too, sister. Ought to make things 'round here real interesting, I think."

River watched him go, wondering if he and Mama Murphy had been sharing the same chems. MacCready looked up from the workbench when Hancock passed, and then his eyes met hers, and just the sight of his knowing smile made her knees go weak. Chem-induced or not, there was some wisdom to Hancock's madness. The ghoul looked back and forth between MacCready's grin and her blushing cheeks and chuckled under his breath.

"Interesting. Real interesting."


End file.
